Spit And Polish - Donnie Spitzer

When Police Sgt. Donnie Spitzer was assigned his patrol car in 1983, he found a box of white uniform gloves in the trunk represented a big problem.

When he became a road sergeant in the North End Precinct, he found he also became responsible for selecting honor guards to represent Newport News police at formal programs, from parades to funerals.

It didn't take long, he recalls, to decide that the department needed a permanent honor guard of trained officers rather than forming a new detachment for each special duty.

Spitzer enlisted about 25 volunteers when the permanent honor guard was formed about two years ago and even won approval for special uniforms to be worn with the white gloves. Spitzer says the department has reinstated the dress blouse of an earlier day, and trousers marked with a red stripe down the seam, he says.

"We have gotten a lot of compliments on the honor guard," he says. "Drill is time consuming, but such things put the police profession in a positive light and offers a good image of the department."

A veteran of 21 years with city police, the concept of a spit-and-polish honor guard was really alien to the task he filled eight years before returning to uniform in Denbigh.

He spent that time with the vice and narcotics squad, and dressed in the frequently casual garb of that world. He admits he drew some strange looks then, but says "results are what counts, and we made a lot of cases.

"It is a good feeling when you see someone you arrested as a druggie who has straightened out their life," he adds. "They didn't think it was good at the time, but it takes something like that to get their attention before you can help them."

Spitzer was married last September, to the former Carol Debnam of York County.

His favorite charity is the Shrine's Crippled Childrens' Hospital. A Mason since the late 1970s, he now is a 32nd degree Mason and a member of Khedive Temple.